1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to media devices and, more particularly, to portable media devices having displays.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable media devices, such as MP3 players, video players, cell phones, and PDAs, are typically small, lightweight and highly portable. The primary source of power to these media devices are rechargeable batteries housed within the media devices. These batteries are typically recharged through a cable that connects to an AC adapter or a peripheral port of a personal computer. A portable media device typically includes a display that presents a user interface to a user of the device. The user interface can assist with user control or navigation of the media device as well as displaying information pertaining to media being played. For example, as to user control or navigation, the display can display menus or lists, volume level, user preferences, playback status, etc. As another example, when an audio item (e.g., song) is being played by the media device, the title and possibly the artwork associated with the song (or its associated album) can be displayed on the display. As still another example, when a video item (e.g., movie) is being played by the media device, video frames can be sequentially displayed on the display.
Some portable media devices dim or turn-off their displays when not being used. Dimming or deactivating a display serves to reduce its power consumption. For example, a display might be dimmed or turned-off after a lack of any user interaction for a period of time. As another example, when a housing (e.g., clam shell type cell phone housing or laptop computer housing) is closed, its display is typically turned off since it is no longer usable by the user.
Nevertheless, there is an increasing demand for larger and brighter displays on portable media devices. Unfortunately, however, the increased power consumption of larger and brighter displays leads to substantial increases in the overall power consumption of the portable media devices. Accordingly, larger and brighter displays increase the demand for power from the batteries. As a result, portable media devices may need to provide larger, heavier batteries in order to power the larger and brighter displays for a sufficient duration of time. The conventional approaches to dimming or deactivating displays are not able to address the power consumption difficulties due to the larger and brighter displays.
Thus, there remains a need for improved techniques to intelligently manage power consumption of portable media devices.